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IndyCar drops Oriol Servia's penalty, gives it to Scott Dixon

Oriol Servia was initially penalized for hitting a tire barrier, but later, IndyCar ruled that his collision was caused by trying to avoid Scott Dixon, who had spun out. Photo by LAT PHOTOGRAPHIC

Oriol Servia thought it was an easy call by IndyCar’s race control, but he was surprised it took as long as it did Saturday.

Servia initially was penalized for causing a red-flag situation in qualifying by running into the tire barrier in turn one. The penalty for that is the removal of the two fastest laps in the session.

But as Servia pointed out to anyone who would listen, he hit the tires to avoid hitting Scott Dixon, whose car was sitting sideways in the middle of the track after a harmless spin.

“What was I supposed to do, hit him?” said Servia, whose Panther DRR car broke its front wing assembly. “It was either hit Dixie or hit the tires. The track was completely blocked.”

The final ruling was that Dixon would be stripped of his two fastest laps for causing the situation in the first place. That dropped him to the 27th starting place for Sunday’s Toyota Grand Prix of Long Beach.

“Tough call,” Dixon said. “Obviously, my car was still running, and I was getting ready to pull away.

“I was trying to select a gear when I was told to sit still because there was a car coming. Oriol wouldn’t know if I was trying to go backward or forward.”

Servia will start 18th.

Marco Andretti also was penalized in the session for disrupting the qualifying lap of JR Hildebrand. Andretti will start 26th.